HOW JACK FOUND THAT BEANS MAY GO BACK -¬ ON A CHAP

Without the slightest basis    

For hypochondriasis  

A widow had forebodings whibh a cloud around her flung,

And with expression cynical

 For half the day a clinical

 Thermometer she held beneath her tongue.

Whene'er she read the papers

She suffered from the vapors,

At every tale of malady or accident she'd groan;

In every new and smart disease,

From housemaid's knee to heart disease,

She recognized the symptoms as her own!

She had a yearning chronic

To try each novel tonic,

Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm; 

And from a homeopathist

Would change to an hydropathist,

And back again, with stupefying calm!

She was nervous, 'catalj')IJtic,

And anemic, and dyspeptic:

Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her fears. 

She dwelt with force fanatical

Upon a twinge rheumatical,

And said she had a buzzing in her ears!

Now aU of this bemoaning

And this grumbling and this groaning

The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored.

 His heart completely hardening,

He gave his time to gardening,

For, raising beans was something he adored.

Each hour in accents morbid

This limp maternal bore bid

Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys. 

She never granted Jack a day

Without some long "Alackaday!"

Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.

But Jack, no panic showing,

Just watched his beanstalk growing,

And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole.

 At all her words funereal

He smiled a smile ethereal,

Or sighed an absent-minded "Bless my soul!"

That hollow-hearted creature

Would never change a feature:

No tear bedimmed his eye, however touching was her talk.

She never fussed or flurried him,

The only thing that worried him

Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!

But then he wabbled loosely

His head, and wept profusely,

And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his tears, 

Exclaimed: "It hasn't got any!"

He found this blow. to botany

Was sadder than were all his mother's fears.

The Moral is that gardeners pine

Whene'er no pods adorn the vine.

Of all sad words experience gleans

The saddest are: "It might have beans."

(I did not make this up myself:

'Twas in a book upon my shelf.

It's witty, but I don't deny

It's rather Whittier than I!)

SWANS

With wings held close and slim neck bent, 

Along dark water scarcely stirred,

Floats, shimmering and indolent,

The alabaster bird.

Its mate floats near, the lovely one;

They lie like snow, cool flake on flake,

Mild breast on breast of dimmer swan 

Dim-mirrored in the lake.

They glide. . . and glides that white embrace, 

Shy bird to bird, with never a sound;

Thus leaned Narcissus toward his face, 

Leaned lower till he drowned.

Leda leaned thus, subdued and spent

Beneath those vivid wings of love. . .

Along the lake, proud, indolent,

The vast birds scarcely move.

Silence is wisdom. Then how wise

Are these whose song is, but their knell!

A god did well to choose this guise.

Truly a god did well.

THE CREATION

(A Negro Sermon)

And God stepped out on space,

And He looked around and said, "I'm lonely­

/' II make me a world."

And far as the eye of God could see 

Darkness covered everything, 

Blacker than a hundred midnights 

Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,

And ,the light broke,

And the darkness rolledJup on one side, 

.And the light st~o<:l,shining on the other, 

And God, saicJ., "That's good!"

Then God reached out and took the light in His hand

And God rolled the light around in His hand,

 Until He made the sun;

And He set that sun a,blazing in the heavens. . 

And the light that was leftftom making the s~rL 

God gathered up in a 'shining ball

And flung against the dar¥:I\~ss,

Spangling the night with the moon and stars.

 Then down between

The darkness and theil light

He hurled the world;

And God said, "That's good!"

Then God himself stepped down­

And the sun was on His right hand,

 And the moon was on His left;

'J'4e stars were clustered about His head,

hands,

And the earth was under His feet.

 And God walked, and where He trod 

His footsteps hollowed the valleys ou

t And bulged the mountains up.

Then He stopped and looked and saw

That the earth was hot and barren.

So God stepped over to the edge of the world 

And He spat out the seven seas;

He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed; 

He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled; 

And the waters above the earth came down, 

The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,

And the little red flowers blossomed,

The pine-tree pointed his finger to the sky,

And the oak spread out his arms;

The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,

 And the rivers ran down to the sea;

And God smiled again, .

And the rainbow appeared,

And curled itself around His shoulder.

Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand

 Over the sea and over the land,

And He said, "Bring forth! Bring forth!"

And quicker than God could drop His hand,

 Fishes and fowls

And beasts and birds

Swam the rivers and the seas;

Roamed the forests and the woods,

And split the air with their wings,

And God said, "That's good!"

Then God walked around 

And God looked around

On all, that He had made. He looked at His sun,

And He looked at His moon,

And He looked at His little stars; 

He looked on His world

With all its living things,

And God said, "I'm lonely still."

Then God sat down

On the side of a hill where He could think; 

By a deep, wide river He sat down;

With His head in His hands,

God thought and thought,

Till He thought, "I'll make me a man!"

Up from the bed of the river

God scooped the clay;

And by the bank of the river

He kneeled Him down;

And there the great God Almighty,

Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,

Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, 

Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand-,­This Great God,

Like a mammy bending over her baby,

Kneeled down in the dust

Toiling over a lump of clay

Till He shaped it in His own image;

Then into it He blew the breath of life,

And man became a living soul.

Amen. Amen.

BETWEEN TWO LOVES

I gotta lov' for Angela,

            I lov' Carlotta, too.

I no can marry both 0' dem,

            So w'at I gonna do?

O! Angela ees pretta girl,

She gotta hair so black, so curl, 

An' teeth so white as anytheeng.

An' O! she gotta voice to seeng,

Dat mak' your hearta feel eet must

 Jump up an' dance or eet weel bust.

 An' alIa time she seeng, her eyes 

Dey smila like Italia's skies,

An' makin' flirtin' looks at you­

But dat ees all w' at she can do.

Carlotta ees no gotta song,

But she ees twice so big an' strong

 As Angela, an' she no look

So beautiful-but she can cook. 

You oughta see her carry wood! 

I tal you w'at, eet do you good.

When she ees be som'body's wife 

She worka hard, you bat my life! 

She. never gattin' tired, too­

But dat ees all w'at she can do.

O! my! I weesh dat Angela

            Was strong for carry wood,

Or else Carlotta gotta song

            An' looka pretta good.

I gotta lov' for Angela,

            I lov' Carlotta, too.

I no can marry both 0' dem,

            So w' at I gonna do?

MIA CARLOTTA

Giuseppe, da barber, ees greata for "mash," 

He gotta da bigga, da blacka mustache,

Good clo'es an' good styla an' playnta good cash.

W'enevra Giuseppe ees walk on da street,

Da people dey talka, "how nobby! how neat! 

How softa da handa, how smalla da feet."

He raisa hees hat an' he shaka hees curls,

An' smila weeth teetha so shiny like pearls;

O! many da heart of da seely young girls

            He gotta.

            Yes, playnta he gotta­

            But notta

            Carlotta!

Giuseppe, da barber, he maka da eye,

 An' lika da steam engine puffa an' sigh, 

For catcha Carlotta w'en she ees go by.

Carlotta she walka weeth nose in da air,

An' look through Giuseppe weeth far-away stare,

 As eef she no see dere ees som'body dere.

Giuseppe, da barber, he gotta da cash,

He gotta da clo'es an' da bigga mustache, 

He gotta da seely young girls for da "mash,"

            But notta­

            You bat my life, notta­

            Carlotta.

            I gotta!

THE BOOK OF WISDOM

I met a seer.

He held in his hands

The book of wisdom.

"Sir," I addressed him,

"Let me read."

"Child-" he began.

"Sir," I said,

"Think not that I am a child,

For already I know much

Of that which you hold;

Aye, much."

He smiled.

Then he opened the book

And held it before me.

Strange that I should have grown so suddenly blind.

SILENCE

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, 

And the silence of the city when it pauses,

And the silence/'of a man and a maid,

And the silerice for which music alone finds the word,

And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,

 And the silence of the sick

When their eyes roam about the room.

And I ask: For the depths

Of what use is language?

A beast of the field moans a few times

When death takes its young.

And we are voiceless in the presence of realities­

We cannot speak.

A curious boy asks an old soldier

Sitting in front of the grocery store,

"How did you lose your leg?"

And the old soldier is struck with silence,

Or his mind flies away

Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.

It comes back jocosely

And he says, "A bear bit it off."

And the boy wonders, while the old soldier

Dumbly, feebly lives over

The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,

The shrieks of the slain,

And himself lying on the ground,

And the hospital surgeons, the knives,

, And the long days in bed.

But if he could describe it all

He would be an artist.

But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds 

Which he could not describe.

There is the silence of a great hatred,

And the silence of a great love,

And the silence of a deep peace of mind,

And the silence of an embittered friendship,

There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,

Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,

Comes with visions not to be uttered

Into a realm of higher life.

And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech,

There is the silence of defeat.

There is the silence of those unjustly punished; 

And the silence of the dying whose hand 

Suddenly grips yours.

There is the silence between father and son, 

When the father cannot explain his life,

Even though he be misunderstood for it.

There is the silence that comes between husband 

There is the silence of those who have failed; 

And the vast silence that covers

Broken nations and vanquished leaders.

There is the silence of Lincoln,

Thinking of the poverty of his youth.

And the silence of Napoleon 

After Waterloo.

And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc

Saying amid the flames, 

"Blessed Jesus"­

Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope. 

And there is the silence of age,

Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it

In words intelligible to those who have not lived 

The great range of life.

And there is the silence of the dead.

If we who are in life cannot speak

Of profound experiences,

Why do you marvel that the dead

Do not tell you of death?

Their silence shall be interpreted

As we approach them.

THE GIFT OF GOD

Blessed with a joy that only she

Of all alive shall ever know,

She wears a proud humility

For what it was that killed it so,­

That her degree should be so great :

Among the favored of the Lord 

That she may scarcely bear the weight 

Of her bewildering reward.

 As one apart, immune, alone,

Or featured for the shining ones, 

And like to none that she has known

 Of other women's other sons,­

The firm fruition of her need, 

He shines anointed; and he blurs 

Her vision, till it seems indeed 

A sacrilege to call him hers.

She fears a little for so much

Of what is best, and hardly dares

To think of him as one to touch 

With aches, indignities, and cares; 

She sees him rather at the goal,

Still shining; and her dream foretells 

The proper shining of a soul

Where nothing ordinary dwells.

Perchance a canvass of the town

Would find him far from flags and shouts, 

And leave him only the renown

Of many smiles and many doubts; 

Perchance the crude and common tongue 

Would havoc strangely with his worth; 

But she, with innocence unwrung, 

Would read his name around the earth.

And others, knowing how this youth 

Would shine, if love could make him great, 

When. caught and tortured for the truth 

Would only writhe and hesitate;

While she, arranging for his days

What centuries could not fulfill, 

Transmutes him with her faith and praise, 

And has him shining where she will.

She crowns him with her gratefulness, 

And says again that life is good;

And should the gift of God be less

In him than in her motherhood,

His fame, though vague, will not be small, 

As upward through her dream he fares, 

Half clouded with a crimson fall

Of roses thrown on marble stairs.

JOHN GORHAM

"Tell me what you're doing over here, John Gorham,

 Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you're not; .

 Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight

Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot."­

"I'm over here to tell you what the moon already

May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago; 

I'm over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland,

 And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so."­

"Tell me what you're saying to me now, John Gorham,

Or you'll never see as much of me as ribbons any more; 

I'll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers,

 And you'H not follow far for one where flocks have been before."­

"I'm sorry now 'you never saw the flocks, Jane Wayland, 

But you're the one to make of them as many as you need. 

And then about the vanishing: It's I who mean to vanish;

 And when I'm here no longer you'll be done with me in­deed."­

"That's a way to tell me what 1 am, John Gorham!

How am 1 to know myself until 1 make you smile?

Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you, 

And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while."­

"You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens

Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun;

You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland, .

 Catches him ana lets him go and eats him up for fun."~

"Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham;

All you say is easy, but so far from being true,

That 1 wish you wouldn't ever be again the one to think so;

 For it isn't cats and butterflies that 1 would be to you."­

"All your little animals are in one picture­

One I've had before me since a year ago tonight;

And the picture where they live will be of you, Jane Way­land,

Till you find a way to kill them or to keep them out of sight." ­

"Won't you ever see me as 1 am, John Gorham,

Leaving out the foolishness and all 1 never meant? 

Somewhere in me there's a woman, if you know the way to find her.

Will you like me any better if 1 prove it and repent?"­

"I doubt if 1 shall ever have the time, Jane Wayland; 

And 1 dare say all this moonlight lying round us might as well

 Fall for nothing on the shards of broken urns that are for­gotten,

As on two that have no longer much of anything to tell."

GEORGE CRABBE

Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows,

Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,­

But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still

With the sure strength that fearless truth endows.

 In spite of all fine science disavows,

Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill

There yet remains what fashion cannot kill,

Though years have thinned the laurel from his brows.

Whether or not we read him, we can feel

 From time to time the vigor of his name 

Against us like a finger for the shame 

And emptiness of what our souls reveal 

In books that are as altars where we kneel

 To consecrate the flicker,_not the flame.

THE MASTER

(Lincoln. Supposed to have been written not long after the Civil War)

A flying word .from here and there

Had sown the name at which we sneered,

But soon the name was everywhere,

To be reviled and then revered:

A presence to be loved and feared,

We cannot hide it, or deny

That we, the gentlemen who jeered,

May be forgotten by and by.

He came when days were perilous

And hearts of men were sore beguiled; 

And having made his note of us,

He pondered and was reconciled.

Was ever master yet so mild

As he, and so untamable?

We doubted, even when he smiled,

Not knowing what he knew so well.

He knew that undeceiving fate ~ C

Would shame us whom he served unsought; 

He knew that he must wince and wait­

The jest of those for whom he fought;

He knew devoutly what he thought

Of us and of our ridicule;

He knew that we must all be taught

Like little children in' a school.

We gave a glamour to the task

That he encountered and saw. through,

 But little of us did he ask,

And little did we ever do.

And what appears if we review

The season when we railed and chaffed? 

It is the face of one who knew

That we were learning while we laughed.

The face that in our vision feels

Again the ~enom that we flung,

Transfigured to the world reveals

The vigilance to which we clung. 

Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and among 

The mysteries that are untold,

The face we see was never young,

Nor could it ever have been old.

For he, to whom we had applied

Our shopman's test of age and worth, 

Was elemental when he died,

As he was ancient at his birth:

The saddest among kings of earth, 

Bowed with a galling crown, this man 

Met rancor with a cryptic mirth, 

Laconic-and Olympian.

The love, the grandeur, and the fame 

Are bounded by the world alone;

The calm, the smoldering, and the flame

 Of awful patience were his own:

With him they are forever flown

Past all our fond sel£-shadowings, 

Wherewith we cumber the Unknown 

As with inept Icarian wings.

For we were not as other men:

'Twas ours to soar and his to see.

But we are coming down again,

And we shall come down pleasantly; 

Nor shall we longer disagree

On what it is to be sublime,

But flourish in our perigee

And have one Titan at a time.

ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES

Streets of the roaring town,

Hush for him; hush, be still!

He comes, who was stricken down

Doing the word of our will.

Hush! Let him have his state.

Give him his soldier's crown,

The grists of trade can wait

Their grinding at the mill.

But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been blown.

Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast of stone.

Toll! Let the great bells toll

Till the clashing air is dim,

Did we wrong this parted soul?

We will make it up to him.

Toll! Let him never guess

What work we sent him to.

Laurel, laurel, yes.

He did what we bade him do.

Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good;

Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's own heart's-blood.      

A flag for a soldier's bier

Who dies that his land may live;

0 banners, banners here,

That he doubt not nor misgive!

That he heed not from the tomb

The evil days draw near

When the nation robed in gloom

With its faithless past shall strive.

Let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its island mark,

Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in the dark.

GLOUCESTER MOORS

A mile behind is Gloucester town 

Where the fishing fleets put in, 

A mile ahead the land dips down 

And the woods and farms begin.

Here where the moors stretch free

In the high blue afternoon,

Are the marching sun and talking sea, 

And the racing winds that wheel and flee

 On the flying heels of June.

Jill,o'er-the-ground is purple blue,

 Blue is the quaker-maid,

The wild geranium holds its dew.

Long in the bowlder's shade.

Wax-red hangs the cup

From the huckleberry boughs,

In barberry bells the gray moths sup, 

Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up 

Sweet bowls for their carouse.

Over the shelf of the sandy cove

Beach-peas blossom late.

By copse and cliff the swallows rove

Each calling to his mate.

Seaward the sea-gulls go,

And the land"birds all are here:

That green-gold flash was a vireo,

And yonder flame where the marsh. flags grow 

Was a scarlet tanager.

This earth is not the steadfast place 

We landsmen build upon;

From deep to deep she varies pace, 

And while she comes is gone.,

 Beneath my feet I feel

Her smooth bulk heave and dip; 

With velvet plunge and soft upreel 

She swings and steadies to her keel

 Like a gallant, gallant ship.

These summer clouds she sets for sail, 

The sun is her masthead light,

She tows the moon like a pinnace frail 

Where her phosphor wake churns bright.

Now hid, now looming clear,

On the face of the dangerous blue

The star fleets tack and wheel and veer, 

But on, but on does the old earth steer

 As if her port she knew.

God, dear God! Does she know her port,

 Though she goes so far about?

Or blind astray, does she make her sport

 To brazen and chance it out?

I watched when her captains passed: 

She were better captainless.

Men in the cabin, before the mast,

But some were reckless and some aghast, 

And some sat gorged at mess.

By her battened hatch I leaned and caught 

Sounds from the noisome hold,­

Cursing and sighing of souls distraught

There is cash to purse and spend,

There are wives to be embraced,

Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend,

 And hearts to take and keep to the end,­

0 little sails, make haste!

But thou, vast outbound ship of souls,

What harbor town for thee?

What shapes, when thy arriving tolls, 

Shall crowd the banks to see?

Shall all the happy shipmates then 

Stand singing brotherly?

Or shall a haggard ruthless few 

Warp her over and bring her to, 

While the many broken souls of men 

Fester down in the slaver's pen,

.,Apd nothing to say or do?

A STEIN SONG

(From "fi'pring")

            Give a rouse, then, in the May time

            For a life that knows no fear!

Turn night-time into daytime

            With the sunlight of good cheer!

            For it's always fair weather

            When good fellows get together,

With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.

When the wind comes up from Cuba,

            And the birds are on the wing,

And our hearts are patting j uba

            To the banjo of the spring,

            Then it's no wonder whether

            The boys will get together,

With a stein on the table and a cheer for everything.

For we're all frank-and-twenty

            When the spring is in the air;

And we've faith and hope a-plenty,

            And we've life and love to spare:

            And it's birds of a feather

            When we all get together,

With a stein on the table and a heart without a care.

For we know the world is glorious,

            And the goal a golden thing,

And that God is not censorious

            When his children have their fling;

            And life slips its tether

            When the boys get together,

With a stein on the table in the fellowship of spring.

COMRADES

Comrades, pour the wine tonight,

            For the parting is with dawn.

Oh, the clink of cups together,

            With the daylight coming on!

            Greet the morn with a double horn,

 When strong men drink together!

Comrades, gird your swords tonight,

            For the battle is with dawn.

Oh, the clash of shields together,

            With the triumph coming on!

            Greet the foe and lay him low,

When strong men fight together.

Comrades, watch the tides tonight, 

For the sailing is with dawn.

Oh, to face the spray together,

            With the tempest coming on!

  

Greet the Sea

With a shout of glee,

When strong men roam together.

Comrades, give a cheer tonight,

            For the dying is with dawn.

Oh, to meet the stars together,

            With the silence coming on!

            Greet the end

            As a friend a friend,

When strong men die together.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Oh, the shambling sea is a sexton old, 

And well his work is done.

With an equal grave for lord and knave, 

He buries them everyone.

Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip,

 He makes for the nearest shore;

And God, who sent him a thousand ship,

 Will send him a thousand more;

But some he'll save for a bleaching grave,
And shoulder them in to shore,­
Shoulder them in, shoulder them in,
Shoulder them in to shore.

Oh, the ships of Greece and the ships of Tyre 

Went out, and where are they?

In the port they made, they are delayed

 With the ships of yesterday.

He followed the ships of England far, 

As the ships of long ago;

And the ships of France they led him a dance,

 But he laid them all arow.

Oh, a loafing, idle lubber to him

Is the sexton of the town;

For sure and swift, with a guiding lift, 

He shovels the dead men down.

But though he delves so fierce and grim,

His honest graves are wide, .

As well they know who sleep below 

The dredge of the deepest tide.

Oh, he works with a rollicking stave at lip, 

And loud is the chorus skirled;

With the burly rote of his rumbling throat

 He batters it down the world.

He learned it once in his father's house,' 

Where the ballads of eld were sung; 

And merry enough is the burden rough,

 But no man knows the tongue.

Oh, fair, they say, was his bride to see, 

And willful she must have been,

That she could bide at his gruesome side 

When the first red dawn came in.

And sweet, they say, is her kiss to those :

She greets to his border home;

And softer than sleep her hand's first sweep -

That beckons, and they come.

Oh, crooked is he, but strong enough

'To handle the tallest mast;

From the royal barque to the slaver dark,

 He buries them all at last.

Then hay and rip, with a rolling hip,

He makes for the nearest shore;

And God, who sent him a thousand ship,

 Will send him a thousand more;

But some he'll save for a bleaching grave, 

And shoulder them in to shore,­

Shoulder them in, shoulder them in, 

Shoulder them in to shore.

OLD SAUL

I cannot think of any word

To make it plain to you,

How white a thing the hawthorn bush

 That delicately blew

Within a crook of Tinges Lane; 

Each May Day there it stood; 

And lit a flame of loveliness 

For the small neighborhood.

So fragile-white a thing it was,

 I cannot make it plain.

Or the sweet fumbling of the bees,

 Like the break in a rain.

Old Saul lived near. And this his life:

 To cobble for his bread;

To mourn a tall son lost at sea;

A daughter worse than dead.

And so, in place of all his lack,

He set the hawthorn-tree;

Made it his wealth, his mirth, his god,

 His Zion to touch and see.

Born English he. Down Tinges Lane 

His lad's years came and went,

He saw out there behind his thorn, 

A hundred thorns of Kent.

At lovers slipping through the dusk,

He shook a lover's head;

Grudged them each flower. 

It was too white For any but the dead.

Once on a blurred, wet, silver day,

He said to two or three:

"Folks, when I go, pluck yonder bloom, 

That I may take with me."

But it was winter when he went,

 The road wind-wrenched and torn; 

They laid upon his coffin lid

A wreath made all of thorn

DE FUST BANJO

Go 'way, fiddle! folks is tired 0' hearin' you a-squawkin'. 

Keep silence fur yo' betters! don't you heah de banjo talkin'? 

About de 'possum's tail she's gwine to lecter-Iadies, listen! 

About de ha'r whut isn't dar, an' why de ha'r is missin':

"Dar's gwine to be a' oberflow," said Noah, lookin' solemn­

Fur Noah tuk de Herald, an' he read de ribber column­

An' so he sot his hands to wuk a-clarin' timber-patches, 

An' 'lowed he's gwine to build a boat to beat de steamah Natchez. .

01' Noah kep' a-naiIin' an' a-chip pin' an' a-sawin';

An' all de wicked neighbors kep' a-Iaughin' an' a-pshawin';

 But Noah didn't min' 'em, knowin' whut wuz gwine to happen: 

An' forty days an' forty nights de rain it kep' a-drappin'.

Now, Noah had done cotched a lot ob ebry sort 0' beas'es­

Ob all de shows a-trabbelin', it beat 'em all to pieces!

He had a Morgan colt an' sebral head 0' J arsey cattle­

An' druv 'em 'board de Ark as soon's he heered de thunder rattle.

Den sech anoder fall ob rain! It come so awful hebby,

 De ribber riz immejitly, an' busted troo de lebbee;

De people all wuz drownded out-'cep' Noah an' de critters, 

An' men he'd hired to wuk de boat-an' one to mix de bitters.

De Ark she kep' a-sailin' an' a-sailin' an' a-sailin';

De lion got his dander up, an' like to bruk de palin';

De sarpints hissed; de painters yelled; tel', whut wid all de fussin' ,

You c'u'dn't hardly heah de mate a-bossin' 'roun' an' cuss in'.

Now Ham, de only nigger whut wuz runnin' on de packet, 

Got lonesome in de barber-shop, an' c'u'dn't stan' de racket; 

An' so, fur to amuse he-se'f, he steamed some wood an' bent it, 

An' soon he had a banjo made-de fust dat wuz invented.

He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridge an' screws an' aprin;

An' fitted in a proper neck-'twuz berry long an' taperin'; 

He tuk some tin, an' twisted him a thimble fur to ring it:  

An' den de mighty question riz: how wuz he gwine to string it?

De 'possum had as fine a tail as dis dat 1's a-singin';

De ha'r's so long an' thick an' strong,-des fit fur banjo­ stringin' ;

Dat nigger shaved 'em off as short as washday-dinner graces: 

An' sorted ob 'em by de size-f'om little E's to basses.

He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig,-'twuz "Nebber min' de wedder,"­

She soun' like forty-lebben bands a-playin' all togedder:

Some went to pattin'; some to dancin': Noah called de figgers; 

An' Ham he sot an' knocked de tune, de happiest ob niggers!

Now, sence dat time-it's mighty strange-dere's not de

slightes' showin' Ob any ha'r at all upon de 'possum's tail a-growin'; 

An' curyus, too, dat nigger's ways: his people nebber los' 'em­

Fur whar you finds de nigger-dar's de banjo an' de 'possum!

BLESSING THE DANCE

(From "Christmas-Night in the Quarters")

0 Mahsr! let dis gath'rin fin' a blessin' in yo' sight!

Don't jedge us hard fur what we does-yo' know it's Chrismus­ night;

An' all de balunce ob de yeah we does as right's we kin.

Ef dancin's wrong, 0 Mahsr! let de time excuse de sin!

We labors in de vin'ya'd, wukin' hard an' wukin' true;

 Now, shorely yo' won't notus, ef we eats a grape or two,

 An' takes a leetle holiday,-a leetle restin'-spell,­

Bekase, nex' week, we'll start in fresh, an' labor twicet as well.

Remember, Mahsr,-min' dis now,-de sinfulness ob sin

 Is 'pendin' 'pon de sperrit what we goes an' does it in;

An' in arighchis frame ob min' we's gwine to dance an' sing,

Meelin' like King David, when he cut de pigeon-wing.

  

It seems to me-indeed it do-I mebbe mout be wrong­

Dat people raly ought to dance, when Chrismus comes along;

 Des dance bekase dey's happy-like de birds hops in de trees,

 De pine-top fiddle soundin' to de bowin' ob de breeze.

We has no ark to dance afore, like Isrul's prophet king; 

We has no harp to soun' de chords, to holp us out to sing; 

But 'cordin' to de gif's we has we does de bes' we knows, 

An' folks don't 'spise de vi' let-flower bekase it ain't de rose.

Yes, bless us, please, Sah, eben ef we's doin' wrong tonight;

 Kase den we'll need de blessin' more'n ef we's do in' right; 

An' let de blessin's stay wid us, untel we comes to die, 

An' goes to keep our Chrismus wid dem sheriffs in de sky!

Yes, tell dem preshis anguls we's a-gwine to jine 'em soon: 

Our voices we's a-train in' fur to sing de glory tune;

We's ready when you wants us, an' it ain't no matter when. 

0 Mahsr!call yo' chillen soon, an' take 'em home! Amen.